To Be Worthy of One's Parents
by To Be Brave
Summary: <html><head></head>Konoha has been torn apart in the war waged between two who called each other brother. In a village devastated by war and oppressed by its leader, Hinata searches for the courage to defy the Hokage and give the ghosts of her brothers peace at last.</html>


A/N: This is my first fanfiction in...quite a while. Two years, maybe? I had another account, but...I lost it. Username, email, password...everything. I'm smart like that. So, until/unless I recover it, here's my first little plot bunny that gnawed on me. During a lecture. Thanks, plot bunny. This is just a start-this story isn't over, and I hope to publish a much longer fic when I have time. If I have time.

Because this is a tragedy, there WILL be character death. Please don't let that deter you, and give this a try. It's not meant to be a light, happy read, but one that makes you think. Sadly, since my writing lacks...a lot...of something...it probably doesn't even do that much (think, that is). Especially not this bit, since it is essentially an introduction and nothing much happens. The heavier stuff is a little later. I confess this is the only bit I actually have written, but provided this bunny doesn't vanish on me, I should have the rest up by next month. Or at least another chapter. I'm envisioning another 3-5 chapters, but it depends on if I decide to make chapters longer or shorter. The plan is to longer, but...

Also a hint: If you know what "To Be Worthy of One's Parents" is in reference to, you probably will get the gist of the story's trajectory.

I've blabbed on too long. Here's the story:

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><p>CHAPTER 1: My Brothers' War<p>

Hinata kept her head down as she hurried through the village streets. The effects of the recent war were evident in the burned-out buildings, the gouges and scrapes in the walls and the road, and even the stray weaponry haphazardly scattered throughout the streets. The villagers, however, had braved the harsh streets to hawk their wares, reopening their shops and restaurants as they trickled back down from the shelters.

The danger had passed, now—they had won. Konoha had won. By all means, she should be celebrating the victory with her fellow ninja and the other citizens of the Village Hidden in the Leaf. It was, after all, a hard-won war that they had emerged victorious from.

However, it was a war that had pitted friend against friend, sister against sister, and brother against brother. Great heroes had fallen, and everybody was in mourning-not only their fallen comrades, but their enemies as well. After all, the Hokage was unpopular, and the defenders had been unwilling to confront their own comrades. Luckily for the Hokage, although some of his shinobi had been hesitant to kill their former teammates, he had his own special forces, unafraid and without inhibitions against slaughtering those who had been their countrymen.

Hinata shook the dark thoughts from her head as she picked her way across the remains of an uneven pathway that had previously been the smoothest, most extravagant road in the village. Rain splattered unevenly in the dips and bumps, and she raised her face to the sky, furrowing her eyebrows as the rain pattered down relentlessly. Resigned, she faced forward once again to continue down the road. Now, after the war, it was little more than a treacherous obstacle course littered with stray weaponry and the remains of jutsu. Her home, after all, had been one of the main targets of the attackers.

She slowed her pace and wandered through the main gates, whose structure and insignia had both remained miraculously intact, if battered. One gate bared the yin-yang symbol of the Hyuuga clan; the other boasted the Uchiha crest.

When Hinata was much younger, the Uchiha clan had been decimated to perhaps three nuclear families after an alleged nuke-nin invasion. The remaining families had given up their compound and moved into the Hyuuga estates, living autonomously but harmoniously with the other doujutsu-bearing clan. Her father had called it miraculous but hadn't deliberately antagonized the once-proud Uchiha by request of the Hokage. A few years after working intimately with the Godaime Hokage, however, Hyuuga Hiashi had been assassinated.

Thinking about it didn't hurt much anymore. It had been a while; the pain was numb. Her father had received the highest honors bestowed on a citizen of Konoha, with a full ceremonial funeral, a tomb in the Hyuuga graveyard, and his name engraved upon the memorial stone. She was proud of him; he was a true shinobi.

She took a detour towards the smaller Uchiha district within her clan's compound. She had spent much of her childhood here. One of the Uchiha survivors had been a teenager, the heir of the Clan, already a seasoned shinobi, and his younger brother, who was her age. As heiress of her own Clan, it had been acceptable for her to socialize with the younger brother, whom she had called Sasuke-nii, and the two had grown close.

Sasuke, and a grudging Neji, had been her best friends. They had no secrets. They'd vented to each other and ranted and cried and laughed together. When Hanabi had grown old enough to join them, they'd welcomed her. They'd been the cool older brothers, role models Hinata couldn't hope to measure up to, and they'd never even suggested trying to get rid of her.

Hinata hadn't been on either of their teams. She saw them nearly every day, though, so it hadn't been a problem at first. At least, she hadn't noticed it. By the time she did see it, it was far too late.

It became obvious soon after her father died. Neji, seventeen and a jounin, had grown angry. Resentful. He said things, dangerous things, even in peacetime. The Hokage had conspired against the Hyuuga head. The Hokage was amassing power to himself. The Hokage was becoming a dictator. Her Neji-nii-san had never voiced these thoughts to her directly, but she'd heard the stories about the cold, icy, but utterly out-of-control Hyuuga toeing the line of treason from the shinobi grapevine.

Meanwhile, Sasuke had perhaps been blessed by Kami herself. He rose through the ranks rapidly, and he was a brilliant strategist and an unbeatable shinobi. He'd unlocked his doujutsu on his team's first C-ranked mission and became a prodigy among even his own clan, famous for producing genius after genius, especially the current Clan head, Uchiha Itachi. Her Sasuke-nii had grown distant as he progressed, and the Hokage-sama had shown his favor and named Sasuke his next-in-line, the Hokage Pro-tem. He was Konoha's shining star.

It was perhaps inevitable, then, that he and Neji should clash. Hinata, overwhelmed by her responsibilities following her father's death, had been far too embroiled in Clan politics to catch wind of the backlash before it was too late. Their argument had escalated. Neji accused Sasuke of being blind to the Hokage's actions. Sasuke fired back that Neji's resentment was unjustified. They fought.

Neji had left Sasuke dying on the ground and defected from Konoha. Over the next three days, a quarter of Konoha's shinobi forces followed suit, including one of Sasuke's genin teammates, a blonde, whiskered ramen-lover named Naruto. The Hokage was furious, but any hunter-nin he sent were repelled by those among the ANBU that had defected as well. He punished the hunter-nin, but he soon did not have enough capable shinobi to send teams to retrieve the traitors.

Sasuke had been devastated. He had lost a brother and his two best friends; betrayed, he vowed to track them down and bring them back to Konoha. He'd begged the Hokage to spare their lives, that they were still good inside. That they could still be loyal to Konoha. He'd sworn to give up his title, to step down from his position. Hokage-sama hadn't wanted to lose him, too, so he'd granted his request.

It had taken four weeks for Sasuke to fully recover, and the first day he was out of the hospital he'd recruited Hinata to join what remained of his former genin team, including his jounin-sensei, the renowned Sharingan no Kakashi, and a pink-haired medic-nin, Sakura, to track him down. They hadn't succeeded.

In Konoha, meanwhile, his ninja whispered of the things the Hokage had asked of his men, which had caused the mass-exodus from the village—innocents killed, family members as targets, and slaughters ordered by the Hokage's whims. In response, the leader had deployed his own troops to root out the dissenters, until the entire population was under his control once again. Those in Konoha were could only dream of the freedoms of a life without the constant vigilance of the Hokage's personal troops, without a curfew, or even supervision on missions.

Not long after, Neji had led the defected Konoha forces against the village, leading to massive death tolls on both sides, a scattered invasion party, and a decimated village. Sasuke had avoided the Hokage's wrath, but Hinata didn't see him as lucky either.

Hinata frowned, inwardly. A Hyuuga must never show her emotions, but she had allowed the depressing thoughts to creep up on her once again. Her feet turned back from the Uchiha clan's more modern-styled housing, back to the plain, traditional Hyuuga housing complex. Absently, she paced up the steps to the largest of the houses—all wood and paper screens and very traditional, if heavily protected by massive seal arrays—and slipped off her sandals outside. She slid the sliding door open gently and stepped within, instantly buffeted by the warm within.

"Tadaima," she called softly, pulling the hood from long purple-black hair. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the dimly-lit halls, even darker today without the sun shining through the paper walls.

"Okaeri," responded Hanabi, appearing as if by magic from the nearest hall. Her graceful form was swathed in the traditional white Hyuuga robes, and her dark hair stood out starkly against the pale cloth. "Onee-san, you have returned."

"Aa," Hinata murmured. "I just c-came from the H-hokage Tower. They have a-announced that t-they are h-having the m-memorial service for the fallen s-shinobi tomorrow, b-beginning at 0900 hours. Attendance is…m-mandatory."

Hanabi's expression darkened slightly, but it was gone before Hinata could blink. "Come have tea," the younger Hyuuga invited, turning abruptly and leading the way into the next room.

Hinata followed, stepping delicately into the room and settling on a tatami mat before a low wooden table. Hanabi vanished into the kitchen and returned with a carefully balanced tray; she knelt opposite Hinata, and after heating the water with a chakra-laced snap of her fingers, gracefully poured out the tea. Hinata watched with a mixture of pride and fondness as her imouto performed the tea ceremony flawlessly, and with more poise than she herself could ever manage. She took the proffered cup gently and sipped before putting it down.

Hanabi watched her expectantly, but not for her opinion on the tea. "The memorial ceremony," the younger sister prompted, when Hinata did not speak.

Hinata took a shaky breath. "Hokage-sama has d-decreed that d-d-due to the sheer n-number of shinobi k-killed in action over the course of the l-last two days, all the f-fallen will be recognized at one m-memorial ceremony. All s-shinobi are required to attend unless p-physically incapable." Hinata paused uncertainly, and the silence stretched out. Hanabi made no attempt to interrupt, instead watching with wide, expectant eyes. "H-however, S-s-sa-sasuke-nii…" she could barely get the name out. "S-sasuke-nii will be given a f-full private f-f-funeral because he was H-hokage pro-tem. H-he will be b-b-buried with the first f-four Hokage with f-full military h-honors." This time, Hinata couldn't bring herself to go on. The two sisters sat in silence. Hinata wondered distractedly that if she never spoke, the truth would shrivel up and vanish. Her pale eyes caught at the walls, the table, her tea, in an attempt to distract herself.

Hanabi broke in tentatively. "Then…Neji-nii-san…"

Hinata shook her head brokenly, then stood abruptly, uncaring of her tipped teacup and the hot tea that spilled onto the table, slowly drip-dripping to the floor and staining her tatami mat. She hurried to her room. Hanabi, behind her, was frozen. She closed the sliding door behind her and collapsed onto the sparse futon, tears finally breaking free as the last shred of her composure dissolved.

Sasuke and Neji, who had grown up with her as brothers and best friends, had killed each other on the opposite sides of the battlefield.

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><p>AN: So...how was it? Review! I have cheesecake!

-Tobrave


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